Pat Gillick, Mariners Savior
Well, he owes us big time for the crap he pulled while he was Mariner GM, but this is a decent first step towards making it up to the Mariners. The Phillies have agreed to a deal with Adam Eaton for 3 years and $24 million.
This takes a local white kid off the market, which is always dangerous fruit where the Mariners are concerned, as well as establishing the market for mediocre starting pitchers at a much lower threshold than expected. Now, teams will have a little more leverage in their direction while trying to drive down the salaries of all the other mediocre back-end starters on the market.
So, thank you Pat Gillick. It’s about time you did something to help the Mariners.
Manny trade rumors, I lash out at the messenger
Buster Olney at ESPN reports on the talks for Manny Ramirez. The M’s aren’t involved because.. I don’t know. They want to block Snelling with someone horrible to make me even more miserable.
Who’s in the bidding?
• The San Francisco Giants, who might have to involve a third team to become a serious player in this market, or perhaps swallow some of Boston’s worst contracts, like that of pitcher Matt Clement.
• The San Diego Padres, who can build a deal around reliever Scott Linebrink.
• The Dodgers, who are starved for power hitters, loaded with prospects and could probably offer the best possible package of youngsters, from third baseman Andy LaRoche to pitcher Chad Billingsley to outfielder Matt Kemp.
If the Red Sox manage to loot a bunch of top-tier prospects off the Dodgers, I’m going to vomit with disgust. One? Not so bad. But really, if they get a whole package of deliciousness that includes Matt Kemp, that team’s going to be ridiculously well-prepared for the next few years.
And, because I’m feeling depressed and obnoxious, here’s this on David Ortiz without Manny.
“That guy will draw about 200 walks next year without Manny hitting behind him,” said one scout. “I don’t care who it is who bats fourth instead of Manny — J.D. Drew, or Wily Mo Pena, whoever — he won’t be as dangerous as Manny was, because Manny can hit good pitching.”
Really. 200 walks. The single-season all-time leader for walks was Barry Bonds in 2004. He had 232. Followed by Bonds 2002, with 198, and Bonds 2001 with 177.
In 2004 you could have batted a bowl of cream of mushroom soup behind Bonds and he’d have been better protected, and he only walked 232 times. In 2002 he was frequently protected by BENITO SANTIAGO because Bonds was batting behind Jeff Kent. In 2001 he had decent protection with Kent behind him and he still got walked 177 times.
David Ortiz will not walk 200 times next year. You know how we know this? Because it’s only happened once in all of baseball history.
Head Shaking
If you’re still on the fence about whether this offseason is proving that a few major league GMs are just terrible at their jobs or if this is some kind of market correction where players are getting paid what they’re worth, well, the Danys Baez signing should pretty much end that discussion.
Take a look at this comparison (walk rates exclude intentional base on balls)
Danny Baez, 2006: 59 2/3 IP, 2.11 BB/9, 5.88 K/9, 0.45 HR/9, 4.20 FIP
Julio Mateo, 2006: 53 2/3 IP, 2.34 BB/9, 5.20 K/9, 1.01 HR/9, 4.90 FIP
Baez is clearly better. His walk rate is a little better, his K rate is a little better, and his home run rate is significantly better, though Baez’s low HR rate probably isn’t sustainable, given his career track record. The difference between the two, over the course of 60 innings pitched, is about five runs. And Baez’s trends aren’t exactly promising – his groundball rate and strikeout rate are both in steady decline, indicating a deterioration in the quality of his stuff.
Julio Mateo is the essence of a replacement level relief pitcher. He’s being paid $1 million in 2007, and most of us feel that he’s overpaid. Danys Baez signed with the Orioles for $19 million over three years!
The Orioles are paying $6 million per year on a three year contract for a reliever who is worth about five runs more than a replacement level reliever over the course of a season. That’s a million dollars per marginal run.
That’s absurd.
Collecting Ichiro
I’m not sure how many readers of this site collect or collected sports cards. Whether that number includes you or not, though, I’ll wager that you may find something entertaining at the Collecting Ichiro site, which documents many of the Ichiro cards made available from 1993-2003.
Besides the photo of a young Ichiro holding up autographed cards of himself, there is much to explore here. This includes those rare cards available only at certain Japanese pharmacies due to a deal with Sato Pharmaceuticals to endorse their Yunker energy drink.
As we talked about a bit a year and a half ago, Ichiro shills Yunker here in Japan while eschewing similar ads in the U.S. This certainly isn’t unique to Ichiro — Hideki Matsui was ubiquitous in commercials when I was here last two years ago, although that seems to have subsided a bit.
Still: Holy crass commercialism, Ichiro! For those of us used to your absence from product placements in the U.S., it’s mighty jarring to hear about, say, the “Batter in the wilderness” commercial.
A town in the Wild West in dead calm. When gusty wind blows up dust, a giant pitcher tries to take away a beauty over her strong protests. A boy who wants to help her finds Ichiro, rushes to him, and hands him a bat instead of a gun. In the midst of mounting tension, Ichiro holds the bat at the ready. The pitcher throws a fastball. Ichiro swings and strikes back the ball at ultraspeed. At this moment, the scene changes to a baseball stadium. After the narration of “Powered by Yunker!”, Ichiro holding a Yunker bottle in his hand declares “It works!”
This raises two issues. One is about the social role of the star: do superlative performers have obligations to adopt consistent standards for commercial endorsement? You should see, for example, Tommy Lee Jones and Cameron Diaz hack out for coffee and cell phones over here. Is there an overriding ethical or socioeconomic concern about this practice?
Well, I don’t know, and I don’t care.
The second issue is Yunker itself. Does it really work, as Ichiro claims? Would it work in the Wild West? Will it work to help one meet beautiful women and defend them against dastardly, um, pitchers — especially in historical fiction narratives?
While in Okinawa, I’m tackling many research topics. This may be the most important issue I have to resolve. Before I leave, I will report. Count on it.
Felix the person
Geoff Baker pens a long and interesting column from Velencia, Venezuela after spending time with Felix Hernandez and his family at their home in South America. While there’s nothing earth shattering in the piece, it is enjoyable to read, and a huge step up from the offseason stuff we grew accustomed to from Bob Finnigan.
And, if you’re wondering what Felix’s workout program is like, well, let’s just say it’s not a big surprise.
A very brief reiteration of our position on Mr. Bloomquist
I think this is a rare instance where I can safely speak for all of the USSM authors. I’d like to be quite clear, in the wake of his extension, where we stand.
We acknowledge that Willie, as a professional baseball player, is a supremely talented athlete. Even as we may lament his inability to hit better, it is a wonder that anyone hits that well at all.
We believe that Willie has value to the team, in that he is indeed defensively versatile, can steal a base, and is not totally helpless at the plate. He’s a guy you can push onto the field to rest a regular or even as multi-position insurance. In particular, we think that makes him a fine choice to fill out a 25-man roster.
We appreciate that he seems like a nice local guy, and that there is, indeed, a contingent of fans that likes him a lot. That he’s occasionally prodded into saying he should be a starter doesn’t seem to have ticked off any of his teammates. The media love and frequent overselling of his abilities is grating, but not at all relevant to his performance on the field.
We also feel that there is absolutely no evidence that he can hit major league pitching. There is no evidence he’s suitable for any starting job, especially no evidence that his offense would improve enough to make him suitable if he played regularly, and this is supported by repeated trials as a starter.
We also feel that players with Bloomquist’s skill set are not that hard to find, and that it is also easy to find players with different skillsets who contribute as much as their team’s success.
Because of this, it’s not worth paying Bloomquist much above the major league minimum. If the team feels that his PR value is high enough that it makes it worth paying him a premium (for instance, paying him twice league minimum, or 2.5x) that’s still not as huge an error as wildly overpaying Carlos Lee. It’s a little annoying, because we’d love to see that money spent on something more useful, but it’s not the end of the world.
Where this is really harmful is getting him 250 at-bats a year. If Bloomquist gets that many at-bats, something is badly wrong with the way the manager is using him. 250 at-bats for a guy hitting .247/.320/.299 is bad for the team. It costs them runs, and runs cost the team wins, and we want to see the Mariners win games and compete for pennants and go to the World Series and win it, because we’re fans.
Building winning teams takes two things: roster management, where you assemble all the best tools you can, and the actual use of those tools. While a million dollars is too high a price to pay for Bloomquist, he does have value when used correctly. Paid too much and used so badly, he’s a symptom of what’s wrong with both the roster construction and on-field management of the Mariners, and that makes us sad.
You can’t make this stuff up
The Mariners have made a signing! The offseason has begun. The Mariners have…
signed Willie Bloomquist to a contract extension through 2008.
No, we’re not kidding. We’ve now guaranteed the worst player in baseball two more years in a Mariner uniform, where he can continue to make outs and hurt the team while getting tongue baths from the announcers.
Feel free to commence mocking… now.
Graph for the holiday weekend
Position players only.
Offensive contributions only.
As you can see, the correlation between last year’s performance and the annual value of the player’s new deal is extremely high (the correlation’s .85). There are a number of interesting possibilities raised here:
– overall ability has mattered less than last year’s stat line
– defense hasn’t mattered that much
– age (and projections, etc) hasn’t mattered that much
– the price of a free agent starts at about $4m, climbs to $8m for a 20-run player, and then only really goes up for the 50-run guys (making the 30-40 run guys huge bargains)
– all of the above
– none of the above
Good news for the M’s
The Astros have reportedly agreed to terms with Carlos Lee on a 6 year, $100 million contract. Bad for the Astros, who have just inherited a decent player for an all-star salary, but good for the Mariners.
Why?
This is essentially the move the M’s needed to have happen if they wanted to exploit the market and reshape the roster by trading Richie Sexson. The two teams who are most interested in Sexson are the Giants and the Orioles. Both teams have significant cash to spend and covet a RH power hitter to add to the middle of their lineup. Neither team has been able to get any of the free agents they’ve chased to take their money, and an already mediocre market is now smaller by one big name.
The M’s should absolutely take advantage. With both teams running out of free agents to offer money to, Richie Sexson is going to look like a legitimate option for both Brian Sabean and Mike Flanagan. At this point, the chances of the M’s both removing Sexson’s contract from the payroll and getting a legitimate talent back in return are as high as they’ll ever be.
It’s a sellers market. Take advantage.
Gil Meche’s Thanksgiving List; Plus, Idle Speculation!
Even it were not a national holiday, it would have to be a pretty exciting time to be Gil Meche. In a time when Adam Eaton can postulate receiving a $36 million deal — albeit fictionally, in Derek’s exceptional video game sendup — visions of ducats have to be dancing in his head.
Despite it being 4 a.m. in Louisiana right now, we have somehow managed to obtain the text of Gil Meche’s remarks to his family when asked to start the traditional “What Are You Thankful For?” recitation. As you might imagine, he’s shaken out Mr. Bad Feeling with great success.
Evidently, the Meche family celebrates early and often. As well they should. Without further ado, the text of Gil’s remarks: Read more